Making Ends Meet: Western Eschatologies, or the Future of a Society (9th–12th Centuries). Addition of Individual Projects, or Collective Construction of a Radiant Dawn? (original) (raw)

2020, Cultures of Eschatology

The religious and philosophical tradition of the West shows that eschatology provides the horizon necessary for all the promises of a better future. It sets forth more precisely the end of history. Eschatology and apocalypticism appear to be necessary, not just for social life but also at the very heart of notions of politics in medieval Christianity. But all the prophecies failed between the tenth and twelfth centuries: a "de-eschatologisation" was underway. A first generation of secular masters revolutionised the exegesis of the Apocalypse around the year 1100. Until the second third of the twelfth century, the enemy was outside. It then became interior. When the apocalyptic returned, it passed into the hands of some lonely and deviant figures. Making Ends Meet? How to bring the world to an end? Or how to construct the end of history, before the afterlife? How can the end turn into a new beginning? Can people decide it themselves? And what levers do they have? The Christians of the Middle Ages in the West had a good point of support to lead their reflection on these inevitable subjects. Two ways were open to them. On my left here is someone who understands the text literallythe fundamentalist. He has two choices: if he is passive, patient, unworried or a pacifist, he sits at the side of the road and waits for the prophecies to unfold; if he is active, violent or has radical opinions, he takes the lead and sets fire to the present world (to usher in the world to come). The choice is simple in appearance: the status quo, or the revolution. But to my right here is the intellectual: he knows the arcana of hermeneutics, he knows that a text needs to be interpreted and that there are many ways to do this. He thus has at his disposal various strategies that are more or less delaying and more or less convincing. I have, however, only placed on the stage two individuals. What if I were to hand over the decision to an entire community? The following reflections suggest that the Western societies of the high Middle Ages made political choices. 1 I believe that they clearly rejected decision-making by individuals in favour of the collective.

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